Fluid resuscitation is a very common treatment in the ICU, and every day a thousands of critically ill patients are treated around the world with crystalloids or colloids to correct hypovolaemia (1, 2). A wide diversity of fluids is available, and new products are coming in the very near future. In 1989, a French consensus conference recommended to abandon the use of fresh frozen plasma and to limit the use of albumin to very specific situations (e.g. contraindication to other colloids, serum protein levels below 35 g/l) (1). Crystalloids and gelatins were considered as the best solutions for fluid resuscitation in the critically ill. In 1997, as starch was increasingly used, this guidelines were updated (2). It was concluded that isotonic crystalloids are as efficacious as starch pending the amount of fluid to be administered.